Well, it’s 8:30PM EST, and I’m finished with the two chapters. This puts me about half an hour late, due to the time spent on dinner. Not planning for dinner will cost me, but I hope I can make up the time.

But no! Calamity! I can’t jump immediately into recording, because now the little one is taking her shower! And, sadly, my recording studio is right next to the little one’s bathroom. I’ll have to pause, and get a jump on the next episode’s editing.

If I fail this challenge, it will be because of a failure to plan for external influences. . .

Here we are, coming up on 8PM EST, and I’ve only done one of the two chapters. I’m pretty far behind, and I’ll have to hustle to catch up. I have one hour to record, and some of that will have to go to editing the second chapter. This kind of underestimation may just cost me the race, but we’ll have to see.

Hit my first stumbling block. Dinner. Pizza just got here, so I’m scarfing it down and hoping it doesn’t slow my progress too much. I think I’m about halfway through the first of two chapters. 7:16PM . . . 45 minutes remaining.

So here was my idea. I’ve made a lot of podcast episodes (still in the double digits, I think, but definitely high double digits), so I know the process. Working on 1884, the process worked something like this:

One hour for editing the text. I’ve already written the book, so editing the text is basically just going through two chapters and trying to eliminate bad writing. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll likely make another pass or two through it before it goes to print, but I’m podcasting the version that I have on hand. So, the least I can do is make sure the grammar is good, the pacing is solid, I don’t use the same word twice in a sentence, etc.

I hang out with Nathan Lowell pretty often on the interwebs, and as he closes in on the end of the last book in his “Solar Clipper” series, we chat about different directions the story could take (he always keeps me in the dark about his choices, so I’ll make a good alpha reader).

So recently, I started coming up with potential fake endings for “Owner’s Share”. We’ve had a good laugh with it so far, but this one’s my favorite:

In honor of Lovecraft’s 120th Birthday, I put together a special episode of Calls For Cthulhu. Hope you like it:

If you’d like to win a free copy of Tumbler, just tweet something about the book, with the hashtag #TumblerGiveaway. I’ll take everyone on the list at the end of the day, and ship a free copy of the book to a randomly-selected winner.

Update: The free copy of Tumbler went to Jeffrey Hite, of the “Great Hites” website, and assistant editor for Flying Island Press. Congratulations, Jeffrey!

We’ll have another giveaway next week. keep watching for it. And if you can’t wait, you can read the first few chapters, or even buy the book here.

After reading the Callahan Chronicles, I got it into my head to write a shaggy dog pun good enough for Spider Robinson. This was a challenge, as the man has been telling horrible puns for most of my life, and has refined the skill to an art.

When I had the chance to meet him at the Heinlein Centennial celebration, I had the honor of telling him my joke, and seeing him groan with appreciative pain. He told me later that he could not promise not to steal it. And now I share that joke with you.

No lie, this joke is 100 years old. It refers to the Mann Act of 1910. At the time, this law was summarized by the phrase “Transporting girls across the state line for immoral purposes.” It was a landmark, though vaguely phrased, law intending to curtail slavery and prostitution. So, anyway, here’s the joke:

Once, there was a scientist who discovered the secret to immortality. His formula required the bile duct of a seagull, which made reproducing the formula very difficult. As he was testing on mice and cats, he had to go out and get more and more seagulls. Finally, he had worked his way up to dolphins, which required more of the formula than any other animal. In order to prepare the formula, the scientist had to drive all the way out to the seaside to find as many seagulls as he could.

Flying Island Press has chosen my short story for their first issue. As this is the first time I’ve ever been paid for my fiction, it’s a big day for me. Here’s the press release from Flying Island:

Flying Island Press
Press Contact – Scott Roche
sroche@flyingislandpress.com
(336) 462-9676

Enjoy Your Sci-fi and Fantasy How and Where You Want

Beginning July 4th, science fiction and fantasy fans will be given a
new place where they can discover authors and stories they’ll be able
to enjoy wherever they go. Flagship, the new e-zine by publisher
Flying Island Press, will soon be releasing short stories every other
month in formats for the Kindle, the iPad and iPhone, and other
electronic readers.